C++ Primer, Fifth Edition

3.5.3. Pointers and Arrays

In C++ pointers and arrays are closely intertwined. In particular, as we’ll see, when we use an array, the compiler ordinarily converts the array to a pointer.

Normally, we obtain a pointer to an object by using the address-of operator (§ 2.3.2, p. 52). Generally speaking, the address-of operator may be applied to any object. The elements in an array are objects. When we subscript an array, the result is the object at that location in the array. As with any other object, we can obtain a pointer to an array element by taking the address of that element:

string nums[] = {"one", "two", "three"};  // array of stringsstring *p = &nums[0];   // p points to the first element in nums

However, arrays have a special property—in ...